Donkey Boy (7 page)

Hetty began to see why the strange old-fashioned personage was nicknamed “Old Loos'am”. Miss Thoroughgood went on to say that though the Borough had changed for the worse, she prided herself that she did not change with it. Had she not for forty years been housekeeper to Mr. Alexander Roland, whose Macassar Oil had been used upon most of the Crowned Heads of Europe—and some in Africa, too, but of course they did not count? Had she not been an associate of Mr. Roland, who had been responsible for the innovation of an entirely new word in the English language? Did her listener know that an entirely new article of domestic use had come about because of Mr. Roland's world-famous oil?”

“Of course, the antimacassar!” exclaimed Hetty.

“Exactly!” declared Miss Thoroughgood. “And now let me ask you what has taken the place of Macassar Oil? Bear's Grease! Or rather, imitations of it which the public are exhorted in advertisements to refuse! That it can so easily be imitated shows the nature of the stuff that has, in the modern manner, imposed counterfeit and sham in place of what was once old-established and true!”

Miss Thoroughgood went on to say that the large house over which she had once presided on the Rosenthal estate, with its cedars and peacocks and wide lawns, where Mr. Roland had
lived like a gentleman upon its several acres of grounds and gardens, was now being covered by the boxes of jerry builders.

Miss Thoroughgood did not say that she had been the housekeeper, nor did she voice her abiding disappointment that she had been left, in his will, only £10
for every year of service with her late employer. With part of the £420 she had bought a small house in the High street with a shop-front; and in this had opened an office wherein she considered that her status as gentlewoman, and her experience in managing a retinue of servants would be invaluable to those of her own class. But something had happened to her own class; it seemed to have vanished, and in its place was—what? People who thought themselves above their station, just as the rows of little semi-detached villas had replaced the dignified houses of the days that were no more. And what sort of people were they who came to her Agency for servants? The majority of them were nobodies, with their aspidistras in the front rooms.

Through the banging of leather, the tapping of nail, the treadle of stitching machine, “Old Loos'am” concluded her attack upon the present.

“I call this the Age of the Aspidistra. Why, in our palm court at Rosenthal, we had, let me tell you, six castor-oil ferns as tall as some of the new houses! In those days everyone who was anyone had a butler, footmen, and it goes without saying, a carriage and pair. Today modern Loos'am, which pronounces the place with an ‘ish', just as licorice is nowadays pronounced lickorish, comes to my Agency for what? ‘A young, untrained girl'! That shows what pretentious nobodies are swarming over Loos'am today! Now then, to business. You require a post as a nursemaid to a superior family, am I right?”

The banging and knocking from the other half of the shop stopped when the door opened, striking a bell, and a slim, straw-hatted and black-bearded man came in. He bowed to Miss Thoroughgood and swept off his boater.

“And how may I be of service to you, if you please,” as Miss Thoroughgood's towering hat was inclined with suitable hauteur towards the newcomer.

“Ah, mademoiselle, veuillez me dire, s'il vous plait, parlez vous français?” enquired Hugh, hoping to high heaven that the old buzzfuzz didn't.

“Non, monsieu.” Miss Thoroughgood looked non-plussed.

“Eh bien, then I must wait for a
Baedeker
,” and the supposed Frenchman spread his hands.

“You speak a little English, I presume?”

“Ver' little, ever so tiny, ma'mselle.” The speaker's manner was uneasy. “I vill vait for diction-aire, yes?” He swept off his hat again. Miss Thoroughgood looked at Hetty significantly. The hammering had not been resumed. Gratefully Miss Thoroughgood thought of the nearness of the snobs, should a lunatic have come in to attack her.

“Now,” she said, importantly, turning to Hetty, “Tell me what it is you want.”

“I was wondering if you know of a little maid to live in, and help with a little boy, and take him out in the mailcart for walks sometimes.”

“Oh, I see. I beg your pardon! Your face is so young and fresh, I was deceived! You require a junior nursemaid. What other staff do you keep?”

“I have a woman who comes in to clean one half day a week, and a full day on Mondays for the washing.”

“And that is all, is it?”

“Yes,” said Hetty, blushing.

“You are married, of course.”

“Oh yes,” smiling. “And I work in the house, and do the cooking. A young girl to help, generally, is what I require.”

“That ees what I require, too!” cried Hugh. “Madame, permit me to—'ow do you zay it—to con-grat-u-latt you on your magnifique Paris Theatre Bloos!” He swept off his hat, and bowed once more.

Miss Thoroughgood looked startled: then she glanced down at her blouse, which covered her from waist to chin. She was flattered by the attention to it, for it had been bought for the Jubilee celebrations, only after considerable and intermittent desire and rumination. From close against her adam's apple to below the collar-bone was a gauzed yoke, with imitation pearl encirclement in several tiers, joined to an extensive shoulder frill in fine pleated muslin by a festooned band of mirror velvet, sprinkled with cut crystal cabochons. Miss Thoroughgood thought it most
distingué.
It gave her a feeling of being Society, with gay huzzars and gentlemen of the Household Cavalry
about her; for upon the flanks of her Jubilee blouse were extended battlemented epaulettes of black jetted guipure over an underlay of ruby satin. Miss Thoroughgood had bought it specially for the garden party given by the Mayor and Mayoress, on the afternoon of the Jubilee celebration, together with an equally impressive hat. When Hetty had come in, Miss Thoroughgood had been writing her letter of thanks.

“Madame, I hoffer my sairvices to the young lady as valet and mailcart garçon to push, push, push—like this—you watch me pushing, ver' steady push-man——” and pretending to be pushing a mailcart, Hugh opened the door, closed it with one hand while with the other holding an imaginary handle, and disappeared beyond range of the window.

“He's been drinking, obviously,” remarked Miss Thoroughgood, nodding the assembly of flora and fauna piled on her head. “He was no Frenchman, but some conceited nobody. His manner was all put on. Now, let me see what I can do for you. Nothing at present, I am afraid, for your requirements. But girls keep coming in, and I will send you the next one who registers with me. About sixteen pounds a year? Will you be prepared to pay that for a reliable girl?”

Hetty blushed again with embarrassment. Sixteen pounds a year! She'said lamely, “I really do not know. You see, Mrs. Bigge, who recommended you to me——”

“Mrs. Bigge? Do I know a Mrs. Bigge? How do you spell it? With two gees, or one?”

“I think with two gees, Miss Thoroughgood.”

“Well, I know a Mrs. Legge, with two gees, but not a Mrs. Bigge, with two gees. The Legges, I need hardly say, are a very old family connected with Loos' am. Our late Vicar was Canon the Honourable Legge, of course, brother of the lord of the manor, the Earl of Dartmouth, you know. Yes, the Very Reverend the Honourable Legge left us recently, on preferment to the bishopric of Lichfield.”

“Yes, of course, I remember,” said Hetty, hoping that she would not giggle at the picture of the Honourable Legge as a leg walking off by itself! Oh, dear, she must not laugh. She managed to say, “Of course, naturally, I remember. Mrs. Birkitt, the midwife, was also with Canon Legge, she has told me about the little Legges.”

At this point she collapsed with laughter. That naughty boy Hughie had returned, wearing the false beard under his chin, in the manner of Brigham Young the Mormon. Holding up a finger as though he were preaching, Hugh said, “Do forgive me, dear lady, for not recognising you just now—I was but recently disguised as a gee with four legs—the usual number, you know—and right well I needed every one of them, for my enemies are hot in pursuit of me—I must away—Time waits for no man,” and bowing yet again, with a sweep of his boater, Hugh retired.

“A joker,” said Miss Thoroughgood. “It was obvious to me from the very first that he was an impostor. Frenchmen have little pointed beards. No, I was not taken in. Is he known to you, Mrs. — Mrs.?”

“I am Mrs. Maddison. He is my brother,” replied Hetty. “I have not seen him for a long time, ever since we moved into our new house. He is always up to some joke or other.”

“Your husband, or your brother?”

“Oh, how silly of me, my brother of course! Mr. Maddison is in the City.”

“Indeed. Well, let me take your address, and I will see what I can do for you.” She wrote down particulars. The hammering began again. Hetty paid a shilling fee, and accepted Miss Thoroughgood's
dictum
that £16 a year was the correct wage to offer. “The cost of living has gone up, you see,” she said, playing with a silver pencil, her eyes on the desk before her. “There will be no further fees to be paid by you, of course, if we can suit you.”

Hetty hesitated. Miss Thoroughgood, looking up and smiling her yellow hare-tooth smile, said, “Well, shall we say thirteen pounds, for a good class girl? Very well, good morning to you, Mrs. Maddison.”

Hetty was glad to be outside. Hugh and Mrs. Bigge were waiting for her. Hugh insisted on taking them to coffee in a place with the words, GOOD PULL UP FOR CARMEN painted on the wall below the glass window. “You get the best coffee and dough-nuts in London in such places,” he said. “But it is best to bring your own tin-can out of which to drink it,” he added. “Well, perhaps I've made a mistake this time,” he continued, sipping the greenish liquid. “They make the soup in the same crock as the coffee in this house, I fancy.”

“Go on, drink it up,” growled Mrs. Bigge in her deep voice. “It's hot, and I find it very tasty.”

Hugh looked at her with interest. “Bravo,” he said. “Spoken with the spirit of emancipation!”

Mrs. Bigge thought how happy Hetty looked. Poor girl, she was not properly appreciated by her husband. He would never unbend sufficiently to do what they were doing. “My!” she said. “If Josiah could see me where I am, he would think I have kicked over the traces!”

“What a wonderful character the old girl in the Agency is,” said Hugh. “You know, Hetty, I want to stage an act on the halls, and the trouble is, I see so much about me—everyone I see, almost, is funny. I worked out an act, to include Little Old Carlo, the Ning-a-ning Man, complete with monkey and barrel organ. I as Gonzalo, the Wandering Violinist. I found a chap to play Carlo, but the music halls won't look at it. They want their crude beery songs. I think there is a future for sketches, comic characters not too far apart from real life—rather on the Dickens lines. But managers are the very devil—if you'll excuse the term, mar'm. They've no imagination. They want the same old gags and forms. They're like ‘Old Loos'am', conventional. My lor', she's a character! She out-bowers the bower bird. Talk about fin-de-siècle! She is the midwife of the twentieth century, that rig-out.”

Mrs. Bigge enjoyed herself greatly. He was such a refreshing young man, full of ideas.

“Yes,” went on Hugh. “I must work out an idea, to use characters one meets with, as Dickens did. But managers are so fixed in their ideas of what they imagine the public wants. Oscar Wilde has blown a hole in the old convention, letting in fresh air, and I want to carry on for him—poor fellow, he's done for himself, I fear. He's rotting in a Paris garret. If I had the cash, I'd cross the Channel and seek him out and give him a wonderful dinner, just to let him know that it isn't everyone who's shocked by the exposé. Anyway, the man in his work, and his work is witty, and by heaven, if good christians are the salt of the earth, poets' wits are the pepper.”

“Is that the Oscar Wilde whose trial filled ‘The News of the World' a little while ago, Mr. Turney?” enquired Mrs. Bigge.

Now for it, thought Hugh: the old girl's liked me so far: now see her face fall. “Yes, ma'm,” he said.

“Oh,” exclaimed Mrs. Bigge. Then, “Did you know him, Mr. Turney?”

“Unfortunately not, ma'm, I had left the 'varsity when he honoured the Fin de Siècle with a visit. For had I been present, I would to-day be able to stand in the drawing-rooms of the assured and to claim, with another blackguard like myself, but also a man of genius, unlike myself—I refer of course to the celebrated Frank Harris—that Wilde remains my great friend.”

Hetty was a little apprehensive, so she said, “My brother is a joker, Mrs. Bigge, and does
not really mean all he says.” She remembered Dickie reading her bits about the trial from
The
Morning
Post,
from his armchair, during several evenings in early spring, two years before. She remembered it well, for he had on the table beside him several envelopes containing seeds, left out from planting in the garden of Comfort House. She recalled a phrase Dickie had used.
It
is
all
pure
filth,
of
course.
Hetty had not known exactly what had happened, to cause such a trial, but ever since then the name
Oscar
Wilde,
whenever she had heard it spoken or come across it in the newspaper, had repelled her, for the name conveyed to her an atmosphere of coarseness, badness, depravity, violence, and terror. Hughie's words, therefore, had hurt Hetty; so she did not want to believe them.

“I can see you are more than a fair weather friend,” said Mrs. Bigge.

“Yes, of course he is, aren't you, Hughie?” cried Hetty, in relief. Then, to change the subject, she enquired if he had seen any Shakespearean plays lately.